High end PC build - opinions & advice welcome!

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MetallicCabbage

Prominent
Mar 30, 2017
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Hey chaps & chapesses!

So I've been planning this build for around 2 years now (build date kept on getting pushed back for financial reasons) and come next month I'll finally be able to afford all the bits I want! Wooo!

I'm looking to get a pretty high end build suited for pretty much everything - gaming, video & photo editing, programming, virtual machines etc etc.

Here's what I'm currently thinking:

CPU: Intel i7 6850k -------------------------------- ~£550
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U14S ----------------------- ~£50
Motherboard: Asus X99-Deluxe II ------------------ Bought for £388 (£358 after £30 cashback)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000MHz ~£120
GPU: Asus ROG STRIX 1080Ti ---------------------- ~£800
SSD: 1x 256GB Samsung 850 Pro ----------------- Bought for £77
SSD: 1x 1TB Samsung 850 Pro -------------------- Bought for £312
PSU: Corsair HX850i ------------------------------ ~£150
Case: Corsair Air 540 (White) -------------------- ~£150
OS: Windows 10 Professional -------------------- ~£200
Monitors: 3x Dell U2515H (1440p) ---------------- Bought for a total of £615

Making for a potential total of a whopping ~£3,382!

As you can see, some of the parts I've already bought as they were really good deals at the time (and still are, look at those SSD prices!). The motherboard I bought the other day because of the £30 cashback offer ending at the end of the month. What are your thoughts guys? Things like the CPU cooler, RAM, PSU and case I'm relatively undecided on but the rest is pretty nailed on I think ...unless you can change my mind!

Also worth noting, due to the price hike in RAM lately I think I'll stick to 16GB for the time being and just upgrade to 32GB if needed in the future, unless there's a really good reason to jump straight into 32GB now? I'll also probably get a big HDD in the future too for general data.
 
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bambiboom


MetallicCabbage,

If cost is not the first priority- in my view there are a lot of advantages to the Intel solution. I was initially very enthusiastic about Ryzen as it's very enticing to simultaneously improve the single thread performance and core count simultaneously-and for half the cost of the 8-core i7's. However,at this point I'm not convinced that Ryzen is sufficiently refined in terms of program optimization, nor is reliability under...
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esco_sid

esco_sid

Splendid
May 11, 2012
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Lets compare for a second these 2 build what you want and what you could get instead 2nd build will actually run most games faster than the 1st and cost 1000 less you could put in 2nd 1080ti in there and still have $$ left over.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6850K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor (£545.24 @ More Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£52.92 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus X99-DELUXE II ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£388.58 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£124.98 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£109.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£419.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founders Edition Video Card (£699.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£120.04 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£149.99 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Full - USB 32/64-bit (£110.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2720.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-03-30 20:28 BST+0100


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£310.90 @ Alza)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£75.95 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus TUF Z270 MARK 2 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£134.86 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£115.26 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£88.20 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founders Edition Video Card (£671.90 @ Alza)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£94.50 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G3 (EU) 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£126.84 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£87.00 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1747.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-03-30 20:26 BST+0100
 
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MetallicCabbage

Prominent
Mar 30, 2017
5
0
510


Have you looked at what I want this build for though? I'm not looking to build a pure gaming machine, I want something for gaming/video & photo editing/virtual machines/programming etc etc. Thanks for taking the time to build that list though
 
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MetallicCabbage

Prominent
Mar 30, 2017
5
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510


You sure? The latest I've seen is that x299 is rumoured for August at the earliest?
 
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esco_sid

esco_sid

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May 11, 2012
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Generally its scheduled for q2 2017 i believe and there's rumors they moved it up a bit because of ryzen but no one really knows if you cant wait i guess go for it but at this point id actually go for ryzen 1700( or even 6800k) would be more logical choice for the price if you want to use it for workstation as well.

 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
Jul 27, 2011
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824
104,940


Yeah I think it's just rumors right now. I haven't heard anything about any new CPUs from Intel for the forseeable future. I mean that could change, but I wouldn't trust the rumors until we hear anything from Intel. But the 6820K was only a slight improvement from the 5820K, and the 7700K was a slight improvement from the 6700K. The CPUs are pretty identical for the most part. Waiting could produce some new tech but I don't know if we'll see anything for the rest of the year or not.

I'm a fan of G Skill Ram myself. I'd go with the G Skill Ripjaws V 2x8Gb 3000Mhz. Apart from that you're good.
Click to expand...

I personally prefer TridentZ which I have in my personal rig and it's all I use and recommend. I would definitely go for TridentZ RGB if your motherboard supports it.
 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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Apr 7, 2012
2,462
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MetallicCabbage,

Some very good choices there all round. A couple of comments:

1. If you are doing any appreciable video editing, or CPU rendering, consider starting off with 32GB of RAM. If you will ever be editing large files, arrange the RAM module size so that 64GB is possible later. I use an HP z420 with 32GB of DDR3-1866 ECC, and recently a 3180 X 2460 test single image rendering failed. When transferred to the HP z620 rendering system, it seems that single image needed 37.1GB of RAM. Extrapolate any process to thousands of video frames.

2. On the subject of RAM, there was a comment concerning G Skill Ripjaws V and note that the latency specification for that is 16 while that for Corsair Vengeance LPX - and the TridentZ mentioned by g-unit111- is 15.

3. I was curious as to the actual power consumption and did a quick PartPicker list using the listed components and thank to modern component efficiency, the total power requirement quoted is 504W. Adding a second GTX 1080Ti makes it 754W, so the 850W PSU is a good choice.

4. The Corsair Air 540 is a roomy and airy case, but I suspect with fans covering half the front surface, it will not be very quiet. That is also a case that appears to have been designed to have a custom liquid cooling system in the second chamber, so quite a bit of the volume will be wasted. I enjoy the idea of great looking cases but my dislike of computer noise while working means buying very conservative designs with the fans set in the interior and then park it well under the desk. Recently, I had a Ryzen 7 build in mind and in that thought of using:

Thermaltake Suppressor F51 E-ATX Mid Tower Tt LCS Certified Gaming Silent Computer Case CA-1E1-00M1NN-00 > $110

> and would run the optical drive as a USB external one on the desktop, so the system could be well under the desk.

Excellent choices though- well done.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

The old bangers:

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card + Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >> 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14226 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16] Single-Thread Mark = 2098 [3.24.17]
[Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1031cb / Single Core = 142 cb / OpenGL= 127.39 fps / MP Ratio = 7.24x] 3.2.17
[FryBench: 3:24 /Efficiency 2177.13] 3.11.17

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card + Logitech z313 2.1 speakers / 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16 Single Thread Mark = 1903
[ Cinebench R15: CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / OpenGL= 119.23 fps / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16



 
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MetallicCabbage

Prominent
Mar 30, 2017
5
0
510
Thanks for the responses guys, some great comments and suggestions here!

One quick thought regarding the CPU, do you guys think I should stick with going for a 6800k/6850k or make the jump to a Ryzen 1800x? I know I've already bought the mobo but I could easily just return it.
 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

Splendid
Apr 7, 2012
2,462
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MetallicCabbage,

If cost is not the first priority- in my view there are a lot of advantages to the Intel solution. I was initially very enthusiastic about Ryzen as it's very enticing to simultaneously improve the single thread performance and core count simultaneously-and for half the cost of the 8-core i7's. However,at this point I'm not convinced that Ryzen is sufficiently refined in terms of program optimization, nor is reliability under constant, full-bore use known.

The user comments on sellers' sites are dubious in that someone is far more likely to complain than someone for which the stuff all works properly will praise. Regardless, there is a surprising proportion of comments to the effect of DOA and very rapid motherboard failures. A couple of the best performing ones are showing a failure rate of nearly 30%. But I find it next to impossible to believe that a company with the reputation of ASUS is selling nearly one in three boards with poor quality control and unfinished BIOS coding. This could be skewed negatively, true, or a bit of both, but for me, it's too early to know for certain.

This is bound to sort itself, but for now Ryzen seems, for lack of a better term, a bit "lightweight" - a bit chancy for intense professional use. On a practical note, the dual Xeon HP z620 we use for rendering seems to need a lot of PCIe lanes: there are two, x16 GPU's (Quadro K4200 + Tesla M2909), an x4 M.2 SSD, and a x1 sound card. That totals 37 PCIe lanes., and the Xeon E5 provides 40 whereas the Ryzen maximum is 24.

In summary, the i7-6850K is an excellent choice.

Cheers,

BambiBoom
 
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